


Useless & Helpless

by AuriferousEyes



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), Gen, Hurt Sokka (Avatar), Katara (Avatar)-centric, Protective Sokka (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Stubborn Katara (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuriferousEyes/pseuds/AuriferousEyes
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53
Collections: Genuary 2021





	Useless & Helpless

Sokka overcompensates. For many things.

He rushes into battle. Boomerang held high, war cry bursting from his lips. He doesn't make it to the enemy as often as he'd like. 

His jokes are incessant, much to the chagrin of his friends. He often oversteps, resulting in apologies that may or may not be taken.

He is boisterous. He is loud. He seems careless and foolhardy. Sexist, stupid, rude. He is lazy, crass, stubborn. Call him what you want. He'll take it on the chin and spit it back at you.

But the last thing Sokka ever wants to be is useless.

The last thing he ever wants to feel is helpless.

Those are the feelings of the little boy who held vigil at his mother’s funeral, his warrior paint streaked with tears. 

Those are the feelings of the little boy left on the shore, as his father drifted away into the fog.

The feelings of the boy who watched his sister grow up broken, who was reminded every day of their missing family. The boy who made his canoes by himself, who tried to lead by himself.

The boy who had to grow up into a man, before he even knew what that meant.

That is the boy Sokka never wants to be again.

But this world has stacked disadvantage after disadvantage against the cerulean eyed youth. He can’t manipulate the world like they do. He can’t call flames from his hands, nor pull the earth into a cage around the ones who threaten his family.

He trains. He trains and he tries. He fights against the odds that tell him he can do nothing, nothing in the face of these powers he can never truly understand. 

He needs to be better, to be stronger, to find the chink in their armor, before they realise he wears none of his own.

Because what is he if not a protector?

What can he be if not a protector?

Those blindingly white days spent standing guard for his little village transform into so much more. He wants to reach his arms out, to block his loved ones from view. Some nights he wakes up with screams bursting from his throat. He has visions of Aang embraced in fire or Zuko sinking into muddy Earth or Toph's small body being swept away through blindingly white rapids.

He wants to become the earth, the air, whatever the fuck he can be. That's the only way to save them. That's the only way he can reach them. 

But he is just Sokka, and he's just a boy who has to be a man.

His little sister is not often the kindest. They butt heads, squabble and brawl. But when he looks at her, he is reminded of why he fights.

He sees the helpless girl who held his hand at their mother' funeral, the other clutching a simple blue necklace.

He sees the useless girl who begged the waves to pull their father’s boat back to shore.

For her, he’ll overcompensate.


End file.
